Chris Dowding - writer

By Linda Muller - Redlands Times It's the sort of book you can read over a few beers. A few Drops short of a Pint sprang from a series of emails author Chris Dowding sent to friends and family while living temporarily in Ireland in 2001. 'I used to send emails home and a few friends said I should turn them into a book. This is the result,' he said. His efforts won for Chris the 2007 IP Picks Best Creative Non-Fiction Award and has also prompted Chris to continue to write. He has already started another book. Educated at Redland Bay Primary and Cleveland High Schools but now living at Marcoola on the Sunshine Coast, Chris said his school English teachers 'never liked' his writing, something this honest account of Ireland now makes a mockery. 'My wife and I went to Ireland like most people go to England. We wanted to live in another part of the world but not where there were lots of Australians. It was challenging,' he said. Chris writes about the little thing

Have you reached the big time when your book gets listed in Wikipedia ? Or does it mean you’re past it, old news? I have to admit, I was excited to realise that my book seems to have become an authority on Dublin’s statues . Or at least the derogatory names that Dubliners have for many of them: Hags with the Bags ( statue of two women with their shopping bags at their feet ), the Prick with the Stick (James Joyce) and the Skewer in the sewer (Millennium Spire, O’Connell St ). I wonder if Dublin Bus will list the book on their website, to let users know what they’re in for. Probably not… but you can see some of my contributions on an alternative site – Busrage.com. Dublin Bus confirms dodgy brakes on some buses , and How full does a bus have to be to call itself full? . Have a great week Chris

This man has successfully posed as the American president since 2001. He has pulled off an incredible variety of politically suicidal stunts and his latest effort is possibly one of the best. Thousands of people lose their homes. George appears to do nothing, apart from talking up the US economy. A little while later, millions of people have lost their homes. Still nothing. A few bankers lose their shirts. George and the Federal Reserve hand over billions and billions of dollars to prop them up. Suddenly, lots of bankers and stockbrokers have lost their shirts, and George is looking to hand them nearly a trillion dollars . What I don't understand is this -> if he has a trillion dollars to spare (and I think the only way he could is to get the U.S mint printing 24 hours a day), why doesn't he buy up the houses that have been foreclosed, and rent them back to the previous owners, or even more radically, give them back. Surely the same amount would be spent, people would have a